Striking a blow against fascism with commentary on current events, finance, economics, politics, music, art, culture and how to deal with our economic lives being bartered away by the elites who have our financial future all figured out: We'll be paying off their debts forever.

If you like what you read here, please make a donation to Pottersville2. Peace to all and let's work to end the wars.

"We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." - Sydney Schanberg

"The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft, / And gathering swallows twitter in the skies." - John Keats

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen ... The world will present itself to you for its unmasking." - Franz Kafka

"“We of the craft are all crazy,” wrote Lord Byron about himself and his fellow poets. “Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.”"

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

"In my lifetime we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. If this is evolution, I believe within twelve years we'll be voting for plants." - Lewis Black

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." – George Orwell

Senator Frank Church in 1975 chaired the Senate Hearings on the FBI’s Cointelpro operation, which spied upon and attempted to infiltrate, disrupt and discredit the peace movement. . . "if a dictator ever took over, (the NSA) could enable to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back. . . . That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. . . . I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

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Conservative Animus

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Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, agency, the prerogative of the elite.

Current Readers

Politicus USA on GOP Fascism

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The entire GOP apparatus is slipping toward fascism and millions of Americans have been indoctrinated to believe that the Bible none of them have read takes precedence over the Constitution none of them have read.

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Waiting for Grand Dad

Cirze's World

Eco Farm Shitakes, Squash, Kale - Cindi, Nicole & Eddie

Ukraine Disinformation Battle: Little Green Men, Hamsters and the Fog of War

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There has always been a gap in how media on both sides of the former Iron Curtain have reported world events, and it’s growing as the crisis in Ukraine escalates. It has become increasingly difficult to obtain reliable information from any side — west, east, or further east — about what is going on in Eastern Ukraine.
While powerful propaganda machines fill the public space with smoke and mirrors, one of the few facts that can be positively established in Eastern Ukraine is that the body count is steadily growing: a testament of just how easy it is for self-interested foreign powers to start, either intentionally or recklessly, a civil war in the heart of Europe. Continuing coverage is available at this link and this link.

Cirze's World

Red Roots Farm - Kristen & Jason - No Sprays/Delicious Veggies!

Fukushima, Japan Disaster Worsens and Spreads

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While the American reactor industry continues to suck billions of dollars from the public treasury, its allies in the corporate media seem increasingly hesitant to cover the news of post-Fukushima Japan. Continuing coverage is available at this link, this link, and this link.

My Blog Fights Climate Change

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Animal Rescue - Click Everyday!

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Paul Krugman:

I don’t think many people grasp just how raw, how explicit, the corruption of our institutions has become.

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who, like me, spent most of the Bush years as a voice in the wilderness. And he pointed out something remarkable: although those of us who said the obvious — that the Bush administration was fundamentally monstrous — were ridiculed by all the respectable people at the time, at this point our narrative has become everyone’s narrative.

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Paul Craig Roberts:

_________________ US Media
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"Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda."

"The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media.

Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives — not by journalists — whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers.

Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."

_________________ War On Terror
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Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes.

_________________ Republican Party
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Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.

_________________ American Democracy and Oligarchy
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Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

And that's what the Greeks are in the streets protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west.

Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?"

_________________ Farewell Speech
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"Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"

Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins:

"There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest."

It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization.

He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future.

He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."

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Cirze's World

Liberal?

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal."

John F. Kennedy, 1960

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Citizen's United

"[T]his Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."

Saturday, March 30, 2013

So, about that fiscal crisis — the one that would, any day now, turn us into Greece. Greece, I tell you: Never mind.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a remarkable change of position among the deficit scolds who have dominated economic policy debate for more than three years. It’s as if someone sent out a memo saying that the Chicken Little act, with its repeated warnings of a U.S. debt crisis that keeps not happening, has outlived its usefulness. Suddenly, the argument has changed: It’s not about the crisis next month; it’s about the long run, about not cheating our children. The deficit, we’re told, is really a moral issue.

There’s just one problem: The new argument is as bad as the old one. Yes, we are cheating our children, but the deficit has nothing to do with it.

Before I get there, a few words about the sudden switch in arguments.

There has, of course, been no explicit announcement of a change in position. But the signs are everywhere. Pundits who spent years trying to foster a sense of panic over the deficit have begun writing pieces lamenting the likelihood that there won’t be a crisis, after all.

Maybe it wasn’t that significant when President Obama declared that we don’t face any “immediate” debt crisis, but it did represent a change in tone from his previous deficit-hawk rhetoric. And it was startling, indeed, when John Boehner, the speaker of the House, said exactly the same thing a few days later.

What happened? Basically, the numbers refuse to cooperate: Interest rates remain stubbornly low, deficits are declining and even 10-year budget projections basically show a stable fiscal outlook rather than exploding debt.

So talk of a fiscal crisis has subsided. Yet the deficit scolds haven’t given up on their determination to bully the nation into slashing Social Security and Medicare. So they have a new line: We must bring down the deficit right away because it’s “generational warfare,” imposing a crippling burden on the next generation.

What’s wrong with this argument? For one thing, it involves a fundamental misunderstanding of what debt does to the economy.

Contrary to almost everything you read in the papers or see on TV, debt doesn’t directly make our nation poorer; it’s essentially money we owe to ourselves. Deficits would indirectly be making us poorer if they were either leading to big trade deficits, increasing our overseas borrowing, or crowding out investment, reducing future productive capacity. But they aren’t: Trade deficits are down, not up, while business investment has actually recovered fairly strongly from the slump. And the main reason businesses aren’t investing more is inadequate demand. They’re sitting on lots of cash, despite soaring profits, because there’s no reason to expand capacity when you aren’t selling enough to use the capacity you have. In fact, you can think of deficits mainly as a way to put some of that idle cash to use.

Yet there is, as I said, a lot of truth to the charge that we’re cheating our children. How? By neglecting public investment and failing to provide jobs.

You don’t have to be a civil engineer to realize that America needs more and better infrastructure, but the latest “report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers — with its tally of deficient dams, bridges, and more, and its overall grade of D+ — still makes startling and depressing reading. And right now — with vast numbers of unemployed construction workers and vast amounts of cash sitting idle — would be a great time to rebuild our infrastructure. Yet public investment has actually plunged since the slump began.

And why are we shortchanging the future so dramatically and inexcusably? Blame the deficit scolds, who weep crocodile tears over the supposed burden of debt on the next generation, but whose constant inveighing against the risks of government borrowing, by undercutting political support for public investment and job creation, has done far more to cheat our children than deficits ever did.

Fiscal policy is, indeed, a moral issue, and we should be ashamed of what we’re doing to the next generation’s economic prospects. But our sin involves investing too little, not borrowing too much — and the deficit scolds, for all their claims to have our children’s interests at heart, are actually the bad guys in this story.

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Beth and Lily Calmly Monitor Farmers Market Traffic

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Oscar Wilde

"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

Harold Pinter

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless... while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Chickenhawks Galore

Peace

"A man of peace is not a pacifist; a man of peace is simply a pool of silence. He pulsates a new kind of energy into the world, he sings a new song. He lives in a totally new way his very way of live is that of grace, that of prayer, that of compassion. Whomsoever he touches, he creates more love-energy. The man of peace is creative. He is not against war, because to be against anything is to be at war. He is not against war; he simply understands why war exists. And out of that understanding he becomes peaceful. Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will the war disappear."